


Pinned

by Jrade



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aromantic Character, Backstory, Bonding, Coitus (not quite) Interruptus, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hammerfights, Humor, Like...ten thousand words of buildup and a few k of smut, Masturbation, No clue how to tag the sex but it's in here, Nothing like a conveniently small space to bring people closer together, Omnic Crisis, Porn With Plot, Reinhardt's footfights, Sarcasm, Smut, Vaginal Sex, Which is apparently just a pattern heh, Young Ana, Young everybody, gunfights, young Reinhardt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 21:57:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jrade/pseuds/Jrade
Summary: Ana Amari and Reinhardt Wilhelm are two members of the quite newly-formed "Overwatch" organization. The overall mission is simple: end the war that is being called the "Omnic Crisis", a conflict of sentient machines against humans.Ana and Reinhardt's task is quite simple, and every bit as impossible as it is straightforward (as all the Overwatch missions are) - they are to infiltrate and forcibly decommission a weapons manufacturing plant that the Omnics have built somewhere in and around a small village in the mountains.A hiccough in the plan leads to them being trapped together, waiting for help to arrive. They pass the time with conversation at first, and one thing leads to another - which leads to breathlessness, shouts, moans, and a lot of little marks on the skin from nails or teeth.Of course, help never arrivesexactlywhen one wants it, does it?Semi-omniscient, largely Ana-centric. Considered canon for "Both Sides Now". Dedicated to bzarcher!





	Pinned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bzarcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/gifts).



> This is dedicated to bzarcher! They mentioned an interest in Ana/Reinhardt, and uh... I wrote sixteen thousand words. Look, I have a problem, okay? It's fine >.>
> 
> Point of view is primarily over Ana's shoulder, but it's semi-omniscient with glimpses of other character's thoughts and perceptions at times. Canonical as backstory for [Both Sides Now](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11077395/chapters/24707637>), which is a longer, chapter-based fic, with this particular story outlining the first time Ana and Reinhardt had sex (way in the past), as well as offering a little more insight into general characterization and relationships. This should be easily readable and understandable without having read BSN at all - so if you haven't read it, don't worry, this will still all make sense! :)  
> Well, it'll make sense presuming that I've done my job right, heh. >.>
> 
> Set in the early days of Overwatch, during the Omnic crisis. Presumes that Ana has not yet given birth to Fareeha, and that that particular event happens within the few years following this. The timeline's a little fuzzy maybe.

Ana Amari was known for many things, and  _ as  _ many things, to many people. Her fellow soldiers had called her Horus, the one who watched over and protected them; her foes had called her nothing at all. After all, dead men tell no tales.

Some of that had changed when she had joined Overwatch. That was what they were calling this organization, officially - a bit of an odd title, in her opinion. Perhaps a bit of an eerie one, with its implications of oversight and control. It called to mind images of eyes peering from the darkness, or perhaps  _ leering _ would be a better word.

Not that she would ever  _ say _ such a thing, of course.

It had taken a bit of getting used to after the Egyptian military. The matter hadn’t been helped along by her state of mind at the time, but it was simply easier to keep things at a distance. This new group had its share of military, yes, but they had a large number of scientists as well, thinkers and developers. She tended to associate more with the former than the latter.

They asked fewer questions, for a start. They were questions she cared more to  _ answer _ , to follow.

Her Kinamura leapt back into her shoulder again and she absorbed the recoil. Her muscles were loose wherever they could be, her left eye hanging loosely closed - not tightly shut, but simply limp. Fingers curled loosely around the rifle’s forestock and pistol-grip, taking the shot at the neutral point in the middle of an exhale; every muscle which was tensed was one point less well you’d shoot on a target. In a perfect situation, the only part of her that would carry any tension at all would be her trigger finger.

Of course, this situation wasn’t perfect -  _ she _ very nearly was, though, and there was never the slightest chance that she could have missed that shot.

Wires and metal scraps scattered downrange, her bio-organic eye showing her in clear detail as the omnic’s positronic cognitive circuits were scattered across the cobblestones, but she spared it no more time and no more thought as she swung the rifle’s barrel to the side and scanned for the next target. She took a breath as she panned, let half of it out as she zeroed in, and then held it for half a second, halfway out, as she squeezed the trigger another time.

There were dozens more just like it. Every one of them had been a person at one point, or at least had had the capacity to be one - that had been stripped from them long ago, though. As much as she might have disagreed in other circumstances, these ones now were not even worth a notch on her rifle.

Another fell, and another; she absorbed the recoil of each shot into her shoulder and carried through with all of the motions. When the clip ran empty she ejected it, popping another magazine smoothly up into place and continuing. The smooth precision of it calmed her, she found solace in it: the rifle and her, they were a pair, forged and formed. No rifle was made accidentally. No sniper was, either.

Much had been written about warriors of old and the bonds they formed, naming their swords and regarding them as fellow fighters. Ana treated her Kinamura with more care even than herself - if it ever faltered, in the slightest, she was sure to fall. If there was one thing she would never let happen, it was that. After all that she had done, she needed to survive - she owed it to herself. She owed it to every friend she had saved. She owed it to every person she had killed.

Below her, another warrior of perhaps a different sort, bellowed a laugh - Reinhardt Wilhelm, a towering mammoth of a man with a personality to match. He stepped out of the building that was her perch and into the rain, and as she downed the final omnic at the far end of the street, she had a moment to spare a glance down to him. Rain ran in thick rivulets down his shining Crusader armour, along the spikes and sides of the helmet and down the thick chest-plates, glittering along the shaft and on the head of his massive hammer.

He was one of the better ones, she thought. There were a few soldiers here who had been easy enough company - Reyes, who she thought might be just as quick with a comeback as she was; they’d met an unspoken agreement not to pit their skills against each other legitimately. He was the commander, the man in charge - Adawe, the one who had pulled them all together, had decreed it. She wasn’t a fighter herself, but that was sort of the point of their little unit. Ana didn’t speak to her much. She kept mostly to the soldiers.

Jack Morrison as well; a compatriot of Reyes’ from the U.S. military, and likely more than that if you asked her. A sniper’s eyes were anything but dull, and she could see how the two glanced at each other when they thought backs were turned. Not that it seemed to stop them from glancing  _ elsewhere _ , but she didn’t care about that in the slightest. It was hard enough to raise a damn for it in her  _ own _ relationships; what other people did was entirely up to them and Jack either knew what he was doing, or would suffer his own consequences.

A few of the others she liked fairly as well. The swede, Lindholm, was gruff but gregarious if you managed to crack his armour - the only one more full in his laugh was Reinhardt himself. Ana had been hesitant upon her first approach. She’d known men like him before, or so she though - large men with that glint in their eyes and those muscles on their arms, that slight hard edge to their voice. They had their uses, but she’d also needed to put more than one in their place.

With him, it hadn’t been a concern. He wasn’t like that in the slightest. Behind the steely eyes was a gently burning hearthfire, she felt; he reminded her of bartenders, the good ones. The ones who asked just the right questions, who showed interest without prodding; the ones which brought you back to the bar, night and night again. He alone had never inquired about the circumstances of her leaving the Egyptian military - had only laughed and clapped her on the shoulder upon hearing her name there, and said that he looked forward to the falcon watching over him.

_ Clever, as well as strong. _ Her thoughts drifted idly as he stomped down the street. The mud splashed out from his feet as he held his shield up at first, as a precautionary measure - when no forces were apparent within a few seconds, he dropped it so he could be a little swifter in his progress.

“Hardly the safest method of making your way,” she observed idly through the communicator clipped onto her ear, and smirked when he laughed loudly in the street below.

“Why would I wish to rob you of all of the joy of battle?” He laughed again, clapping a flat hand to his chest, “Or myself, for that matter!”

Ana shook her head with a slightly sighed chuckle. Had he been anyone else, she would have called him a naive fool.

She’d heard of the Crusaders. She knew of Eichenwalde. She would never dare even  _ think _ that he was naive. If there was any person in the world who knew more of this world’s horrors than her, it was him.

“At least get it up at the corner,” she smirked slightly, “if that’s not too much trouble, old man.”

“Aha! You wound me, friend - have you not heard it is impolite to mention a man’s age?” She could practically hear the grin on his face and the twinkle in his eyes. “Perhaps I should ask you yours as everyone else has, hmm? Hahaha!”

She shook her head as he reached the end of the covered zone and then pushed herself up from prone. “Repositioning. Thirty seconds until cover.” She couldn’t resist another shot, though. “Think of me if it helps you maintain until then.”

Yes, he was only a bit older than her - only a year, in fact, although she hadn’t let that slip. Her own age was a mystery to almost everyone around the base and she’d found that a youthful demeanor could be quite helpful. Some saw the steel in her eyes and decided she was better not to pick a fight with, but some saw only her long lashes and slim build decided she would offer no real resistance.

She very much enjoyed dislocating the shoulders of the latter group. At times it helped to let others think that you were less capable than you were - the one in the spotlight, they would be the first one blamed. The first one against the wall should things turn sour.

So, she let people think she was younger; let them guess and wonder, with them all giving numbers a good three to five years below the truth (or more), and all the while she was only about a year Reinhardt’s junior. It would seem though that Reinhardt was one of those people who had been old from a young age, in many ways. Only thirty years old, give or take, but still the oldest of their group and often considered one of the senior members.

The booming laugh and deep voice, the white-blond hair, even the penchant for things from decades ago, from before he’d been born - she’d had to retreat back to her own quarters one night when he’d insisted on putting on episodes of some old detective show. Knight Rider. A drinking contest was one thing, but watching television  _ alone _ together was something else entirely; something she was unwilling to start with.

She knew she probably should. Yes, her mother might not be  _ pestering _ her about it anymore, but her tombstone still had plenty of a stink-eye on the matter. Ana knew she should be finding a man, settling down - or at least a woman. Somebody. Anybody.

...a thought which probably wasn’t helping the matter, and had her chuckling in a self-defeated way as she jogged along the rooftops.  _ Just anybody. Just find anybody and settle down. Anybody at all. Definitely a healthy thought. _

The sniper took a knee easily, eight seconds early of her thirty-second estimate. “You’re covered.”

“Thank heavens,” Reinhardt chuckled softly over the radio. “If you’d left me waiting one more moment, I might have frozen in this cold rain. My old bones, after all…”

“If you freeze, I’m not coming down to warm you up,” she murmured through her smirk, her scope eye twitching and shifting as it zoomed in down the lenses. She tugged the bill of her rain jacket’s hood a little further forward. “I’m all cozy and dry up here. Clearing the way.”

There were three shots in rapid succession, three lines painted for just an instant in the falling rain; perfect precise pathways where droplets were splattered to mist by passing bullets. Reinhardt grinned at that, hefting his hammer and carrying on around the corner. She hadn’t said he was clear yet, but-

“I never said you were clear to continue,” her voice came over the radio - not harsh, but perhaps chiding.

“With you at my back? Ha!” He shook his head, his own laugh echoing within the confines of the helmet. “I will always have a way forward.” Some had wondered how he managed to live with his own voice, particularly inside the armour. They’d clearly not heard of Tinnitus - modern medicine was a wonder, yes, but even it struggled to heal wounds that were over a decade old.

He was fine with it. He was fine with it all - he had long ago realized what his life would be. Joining the military had been the first step; the Crusaders, the next. Overwatch was perhaps the realization of it now. A glorious institution, it was clear to see. They were a small band for the moment, perhaps, but a jolly one and finely skilled. Between enhancements that Torbjörn had made to his armour, and Ana’s eye and rifle at his back, Reyes at the helm with Morrison under him, he had no doubts in the world about their chances in their mission.

...and with his own hammer in hand, of course.

An omnic leapt out from a window and Reinhardt moved with speed that might have surprised people who looked at the armour’s bulk and expected a lumbering behemoth. Between the suit’s hydraulics and the rocket boosters, it was capable of some very swift moves indeed - as that omnic found out when the hammer flicked around, flames flying from the back, pivoting easily in the suit’s hands and knocking the machine to the wall. Reinhardt twisted and brought the hammer overhand, crushing the robot’s head.

_ These golems. _ He shook his head, staring down for a second or two at the twisted and sparking pile of scrap as it twitched.  _ Madness. They should never have been made. _

They called themselves gods, some of them - they took over the others and spoke through their voices, saw through their eyes. Ana had confessed, one night, that she had  _ seen _ it happen; she’d told him that she had known omnics who were good people, but when the gods got in their minds they lost all control.

He knew of no god who would do anything so violent, so cruel, so  _ cowardly. _ Devils, perhaps, but no gods.

“Apparently, they are inside the buildings.”

He chuckled and grinned at the sardonic observation that sounded in his ear, turning his head slightly to glance over his shoulder. “Aha, do you think so, my friend? Well I would hate to spoil your comfort, but your falcon’s perch may not let you join in the fray.”

“We’ll see about that,” she murmured over the link, eyes scanning the surroundings. Somewhere here was a weapons facility. Somewhere in a tiny rural town in the mountains, the omnics had hidden a manufacturing plant and were churning out armaments at an alarming rate.

_ A town which once lived. Streets and houses which once held families. _ Ana’s jaw clenched, disturbing her head slightly where it laid against the stock of her rifle. She needed to  _ not _ think about that right now. There was no point in lingering over what was past and could not be changed. Certainly not while her sleeping hours seemed so eager to remind her anyway - she needn’t dwell on the same while awake.

A noise stood out in the rain; something smooth among the staccato patter and Ana’s head snapped over in time to see a Bastion unit on one of the rooftops, whirling at the waist and bringing its turret to bear on Reinhardt. The barrels began to spin up, but before a bullet could be loosed, she had taken its electronic brains and scattered them to the winds.

Reinhardt turned when the rifle crack was followed a few seconds later by a large thump as the omnic fell fifteen feet into the streets. “Normally, I might complain that you were leaving too few for  _ me _ to deal with… but for that one, I will make an exception.”

“Oh, good,” she tipped her head idly to the side, “it would be a real shame to need to explain back at base why I spent half of the mission giving myself a manicure while I let you get shot.”

“If you find the tools, invite me as well,” Reinhardt chuckled. “This suit is hell on my nails.”

She smirked at that as he carried on forward, but her muscles tensed at a creaking noise behind her. Listening closely, she could hear nothing… and then a click. As gunfire erupted, she threw herself forward and off of the balcony. “Behind me,” she called as she fell to the ground, rolling as well as she could to soak the impact of the fall.

Her ankle cried out in pain but she ignored it, shoving herself over and onto her back to ready her rifle. A fireball beat her to the punch, flying through the space where she’d just been prone, and a low whirring noise followed by sizzling informed her that whatever machine had been sneaking up on her was now simply scrap metal.  _ One more for the pile. _

“Are you hurt?” Reinhardt’s voice in real life overlaid with the one coming from her earbud as he came clomping over, and she shook her head swiftly.

“I will be fine, I-” she faltered as she tried to stand, hissing at the pain in her ankle. Reinhardt caught her shoulder and held her upright, for which she was thankful but didn’t show it. She batted his hand away lightly and stood on one foot, gingerly testing the other. “I said I will be fine.”

It hurt less when she was prepared for it, but still too much to be useful. Ana took a deep breath and then sank down to a crouch with a sigh. She tugged at the laces of her boot, the one on the injured ankle, as Reinhardt held his shield aloft to protect them both. “Give me one moment, I simply need to…”

She only shook her head instead of finishing the sentence. Knowing something would help in the long run sometimes didn’t aid in actually going about it, when the short-term consequences were so negative. There really was only the one option, though.

Gritting her teeth and hissing in a breath, Ana yanked her laces as tight as she could in a long, smooth, strong pull. The combat boots had fairly stiff leather sides, and as they compressed harshly at her wounded ankle she spat a few curses in Arabic, but didn’t let up in the pressure at all. She pulled the laces tight, crossed them over and knotted them as securely as she could.

Her ankle throbbed painfully, and she could scarcely bend it now with how firmly the boot held it, but it would help to shore up the weakened joint. As she took to her feet again, she could rest her weight on it - not fully, but enough to be mobile.

“Well, so much for our pole-vaulting contest later,” she quipped darkly.

Reinhardt chuckled. “I think you may still have the upper hand on that one. The fifty metre dash?  _ That _ , I will win.”

“You’re on,” she shot back, double-checking the Kinamura. It had been untouched during the fall and she breathed a sigh of relief at that. “Which building first? Yours or mine?”

His large, helmeted head swiveled back and forth between the two options. Each had had omnics within, or at least one omnic. Unseen behind his helmet, he frowned heavily - his face was actually quite youthful, it was just everything  _ else _ about him that seemed aged. He didn’t mind that, though. Some of the best beers were aged.

“Mine was more obvious, but that could be a double-bluff…” he turned back to look at the perch which Ana had taken, the spot where he’d melted a machine to slag. “I suppose,” he chuckled, “we could always ask ourselves a simple question. Which one would Reyes choose?”

“Yes, and then take the opposite,” Ana replied with a scoffed chuckle and a roll of her eyes.

He was gaining quite the reputation for it, Gabriel Reyes - in terms of battlefields, he was an excellent tactician. In terms of people, he was quite skilled in either combat or repartée. He could read maps perfectly well and was quite fine at orienteering, but when it came to a fork in the road - literal or metaphorical - he seemed to ubiquitously choose the wrong option.

“If you ask me,” Ana posed idly, “your building looked more like a Reyes option to me.”

Reinhardt laughed, shaking his head. “Then our path is clear! Onward to glory, then… or at least, to the basement, because it is clearly  _ your _ building which he would choose.” Reinhardt chuckled as he stepped forward, letting her walk through the doorway first as he covered them from behind, then took the lead on the stairs that led down.

It looked only like a normal cellar at first; large kegs of beer lined the walls, as the building above had been an inn or a pub at some point. “No snacking,” Ana murmured as she slightly hobbled through the cellar. She focused on trying to work her ankle into better shape, to some success.

“None at all? It would be a shame to leave this all to spoil in metal mouths, ha!”

She almost caught her snicker, but some of it escaped. “Perhaps you can return here on vacation some day. At the very least, I hope you can restrain yourself until we have dismantled their weapons facility.”

With a heavy sigh, Reinhardt trod forward, shaking his head. “I suppose a warrior’s work is never done.” The spikes of his helmet scraped the ceiling despite his stooped posture, and small showers of powdered plaster rained down in his wake, sticking to the water droplets on his armour.

There was another door at the back of the cellar, one which looked much newer. The wood of its frame was not nearly as old as the kegs, for instance, and Ana stroked at it with a smirk. “I will need to thank Reyes for the assist.”

“Not so quickly,” Reinhardt insisted. “Perhaps it is nothing! Some new addition to the cellar, here, let me open it and we will see the truth of the matter.”

“You know how to pick locks, now?” Ana quirked an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “This, I will need to see for myself.”

He didn’t pick the lock. He did, however, smash the door straight down with a grunt and a heave, shouldering his way through it solidly. Alarms began to blare and he brought his shield up as bullets flew at them from the far end of a long, sloped metal hallway which descended as it went. “ _ Verdammt! _ I suppose I owe him a pint, then, ha! Now, my Ana, if you would be so kind…”

She took a knee, careful to favour her injured ankle, and snapped off a shot at each of the turrets at the far end of the hallway. “Don’t be so quick to call me yours, now,” she muttered, nudging him in the back with an elbow.

“Haha! Is it so different from calling you my friend, then?” He advanced down the hallway with his shield retracted, making swift time. His boots struck the metal floor with an almost painfully loud clank, particularly in this enclosed space.

Ana eyed him somewhat hesitantly. Drinking contests were one thing, watching television was another. Being called his friend was one thing, being called _his_ _Ana_ was another. She’d heard how Reinhardt spoke - men or women, it hardly mattered to him, but it seemed that he was one of those who fell in love at a glance. He’d mentioned at least a dozen different loves since she’d met him, and there was almost something _more_ worrying about the fact that she knew intrinsically that they could never be referred to as “conquests”.

She knew how to deal with men who tracked _ conquests. _ Hell, she had a few conquests of her own - but loves?  _ That  _ was the worrying one. That was the one she didn’t know how to handle. She knew she should start, should find someone and settle down; she wasn’t old but also wasn’t exactly a young woman anymore, and knew that her days of running around would need to come to an end. There was talk amongst her relatives - those who still could or would talk to her - of children and leaving this life behind.

Perhaps it would silence their murmurs, but for now, she preferred her rifle in her arms to a squirming infant. Or, for that matter, to a clinging husband. Maybe if the world wasn’t going to hell, maybe if the omnics weren’t rampaging, maybe if towns in the mountains weren’t spontaneously discovered to be abandoned with no sign of the people who had once lived there-

Ana swallowed back a shudder and followed Reinhardt down the hallway. The door at the end took more than a shoulder, but she had seen a few demonstrations of his suit. It really was quite impressive.

He gestured her to the side, back against one of the walls, and took about a dozen steps back from the door. Hunching over and setting his shoulder to strike first, he engaged the rockets at his back and was sent flying forward - he slammed through the door without resistance, and she heard immediate gunfire followed by laughter and the sound of metal striking metal.

Ana popped her head around the corner to the sight of Reinhardt punching a Bastion unit in the head, then whirling to smash his hammer through a mechanical trooper. Its arms detached when it struck the ceiling, but Ana was taking no chances and let a round off through its head anyway.

Behind her armoured compatriot, a low factory unfurled. It was active, assembly lines moving and large robotic arms whirring as they worked at welds or rivets, turning metal pieces into weapons - not omnics, but guns and explosives. Several lines were there, making bullets and ammunition as well as armaments, but Ana didn’t have that much time to devote to studying it at the moment.

After all,  _ Reinhardt _ was here. If it had been one of the others, there may have been a moment of pause, or tactical consideration - if it had been one of the  _ others _ , perhaps they would have found some other way in than smashing the door down.

Then again, if it had been one of the others, perhaps they would never have got through the door at all. Or even into the building to begin with.

He strode into the facility, loosing off a fireball which streaked through the space and slammed into a Bastion at the far end, not killing it but clearly wreaking some havoc and confusion. She ended its concerns with a bullet, and stepped to the side to take a position - pushed back against a wall as much as possible, injured leg hitched up on the railing of the catwalk next to her and her elbow resting on that knee. The sort of position her range instructor would have yelled at her for. And maybe bought her a pint when she still managed to shoot a ninety-five.

She took every shot she was offered; left and right as omnics filtered in through the two other doors as well as springing from where they’d been dotted around the room. Empty clips fell to the ground as she pulled new ones from her pockets. The machines quickly showed their capabilities - they were in constant communication, and did nothing individually. One would jump out as three others did; Ana diverting to shoot at one of them left the others completely unhindered.

Save for the fact that their target was Reinhardt himself, of course, and he was  _ quite _ a hindrance to them. One omnic - some kind of upright variant of the little slicers - leapt onto his back and pressed a sizzling laser against his helmet, but he lurched backward and slammed it against the wall, knocking it to pieces. Another tried to take advantage of the opportunity and shot at him as he turned to finish the damaged bot off with his hammer, but Ana sniped it quickly and sent it to the floor.

Bullets started to come her way and she pushed off of the wall, dodging and hobbling forward in a sprint to get behind Reinhardt’s shield. “Not bad for a fifty metre dash, hmm?”

“Was that fifty?” the Crusader exclaimed with a laugh, holding his bright blue barrier aloft as ripples flashed across its surface where it absorbed projectiles. “It looked more like thirty from here!”

“You’re never satisfied,” Ana quipped as she decapitated a Bastion unit at the far end, and then an Eliminator which was revving up its particle cannon. She dropped another empty magazine to the ground and swiftly slapped another into place. “You know, I think they could keep coming all day. Sadly, I only have a limited number of bullets.”

“Pah, bullets,” Reinhardt scoffed, hefting his hammer behind his shield. “Let them come! Let them dash themselves upon my bulwark!”

“Or,” Ana snapped off a shot at an omnic which leapt over a machine at them, and its limp form was kicked aside by Reinhardt. “We could do our job, and get out of here. Maybe head back to those kegs for a post-mission pint, hmm?”

“Only if you ask very nicely,” Reinhardt grinned behind his helmet.

She rolled her eyes at that, smirking as she let off another trio of shots and netted four omnics down for her troubles. “Enjoy living in your fantasy. Now, let us-” she was cut off by a sharp rumbling and an explosion a second later. A rocket, fired from an unseen position at the far side of the room - directly at the assembly lines, and the powder storage against the far wall.

Ana’s eyes widened as she saw the detonation, saw the flash flare up and subside only to be followed by another, a larger one. Evidently the omnics cared less about this munitions facility than they did about taking out two members of the fledgeling Overwatch organization which had been hassling them recently. She didn’t have time to react or speak before she felt massive metal arms clamp her tight.

With a cry, she struck out as hard as she could, rifle butt clattering against metal armour to no avail. There was another rushing noise, more rockets - and more explosions as well. She felt heat on her face as the pit fell out of her stomach; and odd thing to be feeling, and that rush in her head that accompanied it-

It took her a second or two to realize what had happened, to realize that the arms which had caught her were not the arms of an omnic but rather those of Reinhardt Wilhelm, who was now propelling them back up the hallway they’d entered through. Eight omnics who had evidently decided to circle around behind them were dashed against the walls, crumpled and battered as he flew down the hallway’s length, propelled by the rockets in the back of his armour.

He slid right out into the cellar with a shout as debris started to rain down, the booms of explosions redoubling as munitions lit munitions throughout the omnics’ underground complex. He cut off his rockets and slid to the far wall, and had just enough time to spin around and raise his shield before the ceiling collapsed in earnest.

For Ana, the whole world was reduced to explosions, crashing, and a bright blue glow. Her fingers clenched reflexively at her rifle, eyes wide in the electronic light, as the world came crumbling down around them.

For ten seconds, twenty, thirty, the explosions carried on - but grew more and more distant and muffled as the rubble filled in the space all around them. Reinhardt’s shield cracked at the edges, threw off sparks and he grunted, straining physically and in voice under the load but refusing to give up until he had nothing left to offer.

The noises stopped before the barrier fell. In the silence that followed, the shield glowed. It flickered, faltered, and then failed, but the rubble had stacked and packed itself in quite thoroughly. There was some that fell in the stillness that followed, but mostly small stones and plaster powder. It was dark but not entirely - some hint of light wormed its way through the rubble - and the air was thick with the smell of cordite and dust, but it was  _ there. _

Sounds of heavy panting filled the small space for a few seconds until Ana pulled out a pair of green glowsticks from a pocket and snapped them, giving them a quick shake. Their glow easily illuminated the little cave Reinhardt had carved out for them - as big as his shield and not quite tall enough to stand up in.

Ana didn’t want to risk touching the overhanging rubble for fear that it would cave in, but she couldn’t seem to stop her hand from extending and brushing a fingertip lightly against a wooden beam. It didn’t even hint about moving. “Seems solid enough,” she judged with a reflexive shrug, and then turned to look at the man who shared the small space with her. “You saved us. Thank you.”

“As did you, my friend, with every round you fired,” Reinhardt shrugged awkwardly in his giant armour packed into the tiny space. “Thank you as well.” His eyes drifted upward hesitantly. “I fear that I would be unable to dig us out of here with any degree of safety.”

“Don’t even think about trying,” Ana warned, shaking her head and pressing at her comm unit. “Base? Amari, reporting in. Base? Reyes? Morrison?” She sighed, shaking her head. “No contact. They’ll have noticed the explosions, though, and they’ll be tracking our vitals. Team will be here to extract us shortly. An hour, give or take, I’d think.”

“Hahaha, of course,” he shook his head, tugging his helmet off and setting it beside him. His eyes twinkled in the green glow, and his grin split his face nearly in half. “In that case, we have time for that pint which you mentioned!”

Ana glanced around, but none of the kegs were accessible from here - if any had even survived the explosion and collapse. “Unless you are hiding a fridge in that armour somewhere…”

Reinhardt chuckled as one of the arms of his suit unfurled. His own hand was in the middle of the suit’s forearm, give or take, buried in controls which governed the mechanical hand at the far end of the arm. The plates slid and folded back, letting him reach his arm out and around to the side of his armour, just in behind his chest-plates. A panel slid back and he reached inside, pulling out two bottles and handing one to Ana.

She stared in wonder at the bottle. Condensation grew slowly across its surface, it was cold to the touch -  _ Hacker-Pschorr,  _ it said, and below that,  _ Naturtrübes Kellerbier. _ “I’ll be damned,” Ana chuckled softly as she slit the label with her thumbnail and flipped the top back - they weren’t bottlecaps, but rather levered and resealable tops. Not that she was planning on ever resealing it.

“Always good to keep a few surprises in store, is it not?” He laughed, leaning forward to tap his bottleneck against hers. The small cooler had been designed for medical storage, most technically, but a few adjustments had revealed what he considered to be a happier purpose. “To a mission well succeeded, friend - I would say that their factory will be turning out no more weapons.”

“That might be something of an understatement,” Ana chuckled as she tipped the beer back. It was cold, and almost a little sour, cloudy with sediment she’d swilled up from the bottom. Perfect, though. Completely perfect. “Unfiltered?”

“Of course,” he replied with a chuckle, taking a heavy draught from his bottle. “And do not worry about nursing it - I have two more just like them on the other side, haha!”

She couldn’t wipe the grin off of her face as she pulled her knees up and laid her arms across them. “If you keep playing your cards like this, I’ll start asking for missions with you specifically.”

His eyes twinkled as he quirked an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a promise, or a threat?” She opened her mouth to shoot something back but he pre-empted her with a chuckle and continued, “Or a bit of both, perhaps! Haha, I think I will hope for the third option!”

Ana chuckled and shook her head a little, dropping her eyes to the beer. She was certainly no stranger to flirting and knew it when she saw it; she’d seen it in his eyes from the moment he’d looked at her, and she returned it in kind because it was easy enough and fun. She hardly blamed him for setting his sights on her. She knew she was beautiful, capable, intelligent - suitors were never lacking.  _ That  _ was never the issue she encountered.

“So, how is your… oh, what was her name, Henrietta?” Ana inquired idly as she swirled her beer before taking another hefty swig. She’d  _ tried _ relationships before, she knew she had. If she was so smart, if she was so capable - if she was so beautiful and desirable, then why did they keep failing? Why did they keep leading to frustration and anger rather than… all of that other stuff? The stuff people said was supposed to come about.

People told her she was too picky. That she pushed partners away when they tried to get close, but that wasn’t what happened. She knew it wasn’t - she just didn’t know what they expected of her. Still, she doubted it sometimes; she was the common denominator. All of her relationships involved  _ her _ and nothing else in common - with men, with women, with humans or omnics back in the days before the god-programs’ uprising. The only constant was her.

If every relationship ended up broken, there was only one reasonable explanation…

“Henriette! Ah, she is quite good,” Reinhardt sighed, reclining against the wall behind them as his eyes took on a faraway look and his lips curved in a wide grin. “Her dancing is going well! She is so beautiful when she takes the stage. She is one of the circus performers, and flies in her ribbons above the audience.” Reinhardt tipped his bottle back for a deep swallow. “It is glorious to see!”

“Circus?” Ana frowned a little. “Wasn’t that- what was his name, Ricardo? Wasn’t he from some circus as well?” It hadn’t been long that they’d known each other, only a few months, but Reinhardt had gone through at least a dozen partners in that time. Ana couldn’t keep their names straight if she tried (though she didn’t, really), but he never seemed to have any issue recalling them.

“Yes, Ricardo! He is the ring-dancer for that troupe, and the acrobatic feats which he is capable of?” Reinhardt chuckled, meeting Ana’s eyes with a wink. “They are not limited to the stage, if my meaning is clear!”

“Quite clear,” she smirked, yet considered that she wouldn’t mind if they were made a little  _ clearer _ , as well. “But doesn’t that cause issues? Sore feelings? The both of them working there?”

“Why would it?” Reinhardt shrugged a shoulder. “They both know that my heart is free, and I have been told that it is  _ impossible _ to doubt the truth of my love!” He grinned proudly at that, as if it were the greatest commendation in the world. To him, it was. To know that the people who were around him knew his heart as plainly as he did, it meant he was living truthfully, righteously. If nobody could doubt how deeply he loved, then that meant he was doing it right.

“Hmm. I’m not surprised, exactly, I just-” Ana’s eyes flicked to his before they dropped back to her beer and she shrugged. “Didn’t think you would be the type for that.”

“Type for what? Love knows no limits, friend - we have such a short time given to us,” his tone turned a little solemn as he looked off to the side. “I think we owe it to ourselves to take whatever joy, whatever love we can get, while we are here.”

His thoughts drifted often to his fallen brothers, and they did so now. The town had been maybe not so different from this one, Eichenwalde had been its name, and it ached like the winter’s chill deep in his bones to know that they were gone. A tear welled in one of his eyes before sliding slowly down his cheek.

Ana swallowed a mouthful of beer heavily, and reached out a foot to kick him with a chuckle. “Come now, I won’t be trapped in a tiny room with a crying man - tell me more about your loves, then. I’ve never seen you cease grinning when the topic arises. If you are not that type, then what?”

Reinhardt chuckled, shaking his head a little and wiping his cheek clean with his thumb before tipping his beer back. “I? I am the type who loves quickly, deeply, freely, openly and often. No person who holds my heart need ever worry that they do so, but something so great as love… you can give, and give, and give, and there will only ever be more. A beer is good. Two beers is better. A love is good. Two loves? Four, five, or a hundred?” He laughed in lieu of actually answering the question, a deep guffaw that was simultaneously lusty and sentimental.

Ana snickered, shaking her head. “Can’t say it’s the first time I’ve had this kind of conversation with a man over beer.” Her eyes flicked to the encroaching ceiling. “Although I must admit, the context is new. I think the others were only trying to impress or intimidate me, anyway.” She fixed Reinhardt with a curious look across the glowsticks which served as their only light source. “You really  _ are _ full of surprises.”

He grinned as if it were the second-greatest commendation, which he thought it may well have been, coming from one such as her. For a liar to call him honest meant nothing, but for a righteous person to say so was glorious. For  _ Ana Amari  _ to say that he had surprises up his sleeves? That meant very much indeed.

“And what of you then, Ana my friend?” He raised an eyebrow. “What type of lover are you, hmm?”

She let out a long sigh, dropping her gaze to the floor. “...a lousy one,” she muttered, scuffing one foot on the ground and taking another, deeper swig of her beer. She was a little surprised by his laughter, and for a moment she snapped her eyes up with offence etched on her face, but it wasn’t  _ mocking _ laughter, it was humorous.

“Oh, you cannot be serious, my friend,” Reinhardt shook his head with a grin and a chuckle. “To think that you are a lousy  _ anything _ is ridiculous!”

“Well, sometimes the ridiculous is true,” she chuckled, somewhat eased by the apparent unbelievability of her own foibles in love. “I know I should be trying to settle down, somewhat at least - it just never pans out. Men, women, it doesn’t matter, it just never…” she frowned a little, “...coalesces. Love. Relationships and all that.”

“Are you happy in them?”

Her gaze flicked to lock with his, a frown on her lips. It was a question she was used to hearing asked, but never in that way exactly. When her relatives asked, they weren’t really  _ asking _ , they were  _ telling _ . “ _ You are happy,” _ they were saying, “ _ you will be, you must be, you have this love so be happy.” _

It didn’t seem like he was saying that.

“Sometimes?” Ana swigged almost desperately at her bottle and sighed sharply when it came up empty. She set it to the side and took another which Reinhardt held out, popping it open and taking a mouthful as she thought. “I am. Sometimes. When it’s not all about… labels and where the relationship’s going, when I don’t need to manage the- expectations of children and family, the- that clinging dependency and all of…” she cut off with a swift sigh, closing her eyes and shaking her head.

“Why-  _ why _ am I telling you all this?” She laughed briefly, rubbing fingertips at her temple before flashing a teasingly accusatory smirk across the small space at him. “Did you put something in my drink?”

Reinhardt laughed, slapping a metal hand lightly at an armoured knee. “Aha, I have been told it is a talent of mine! There was talk in the army of turning me into a recruitment tool!”

“Or an  _ interrogation _ one,” she murmured wryly back, grinning still and shaking her head. She’d gone through the beer more swiftly than intended, and her blood still rushed from the adrenaline of the fight, but that still hardly accounted for opening up like that. Still, it was… it was a little nice, she thought. Of course he hadn’t judged her for it. He probably wouldn’t judge her for  _ anything. _

“If there are times you are happy, those are the times that matter,” Reinhardt intoned sagely with a shrug. “Myself? I am happy before a battle, during a battle, after a battle,” he chuckled. “I am happy with a beer in my fist or a lover in my arms, or in my bed - or two of them! I am happy with the rain on my face or the sun, because glory knows no weather.”

“If you were anyone else I’d call you a fool,” Ana teased lightly with a smirk and a chuckle, and another mouthful of beer. It helped iron out the little pains and sorenesses - her ankle, where she’d twisted it, and all of her muscles as well. Her back ached from where it had been wrenched a little by Reinhardt’s saviour rush, and while she certainly wouldn’t admonish him for it, she did want to drown it in alcohol if she could.

“Maybe I am,” Reinhardt laughed, grinning broadly, “but I am a happy one! I have seen joy in your eyes as well, Ana - there will always be those who will tell you you should march to  _ their _ tune, but it is your own heart you must listen to.”

She snorted, shaking her head and looking at her bottle instead of him. It wasn’t something that had gone unnoticed, or something she hadn’t thought about. Quite the opposite, in fact; she obsessed about it sometimes when she was alone in her room. When she questioned whether it was worth leaving at all. Going down to the bars, that was fun; flirting was entirely enjoyable and one of her favourite pastimes, and the sex that followed was always a joy. Even if her partner didn’t necessarily deliver, she always had alternatives on hand (such as, for instance, her hands).

It was  _ after _ all of that, that things became… uncomfortable. When they wanted to stay the night, or wanted her to; when they held her and muttered things which curled her lips - she never meant them to, but they did anyway. It always became awkward when the feelings became involved, and she’d thought long and hard about it, and she thought she knew what the answer was. It was one that was written in people’s eyes, etched into the background of their tones when they asked about her relationships - aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, as more and more birthed children or adopted them and Ana… simply aged.

_ Knowing _ the reason and  _ saying _ it were two different things, of course. She took a deep breath and a deep draught of her beer, swallowing the latter as she let the other out slowly through her nose.

“...and… what if my heart says nothing?” She leaned her head back until it touched the wall gently, her eyes staring blankly at the low ceiling. “What do I do then?”

“It says nothing at all? Ha,” Reinhardt shook his head heavily. “I have seen your determination too many ways to believe you, my friend.”

Ana scoffed a single laugh, tipping her head to the side. The teasing helped, the lightheartedness. “I meant with  _ people _ , you big oaf. My heart guides my life, guides my hand. When it comes to relationships, though?” She sighed a sad laugh and shook her head, before fixing Reinhardt with a narrow look across the small space. “There are many parts which speak to me when someone else is near. My mind, my hands, my eyes, my thighs, yes, my lips -  _ they  _ all have their desires. My heart is simply…”  _ broken _ “...absent, from the considerations.”

Slowly, Reinhardt shrugged. “Then it is not there to listen to. One can hardly read a book which is not at hand! Listen instead to those pieces which speak.”

The sniper laughed brightly and openly at that, and for a fair while. Reinhardt grinned at how the sound filled the space, filled his ears and his heart - hers might not speak to her, but some days he felt like his own never shut up. He didn’t mind it, though. His heart was a warrior as much as he was, striding forth confidently - it may be battered, it may get bruised, but it would never give up and it would never lose.

“You sound like the  _ opposite _ of my family,” Ana chuckled, shaking her head and tipping her bottle back again. “Yes, though, I’ve done that. It was fun. I… was happy.”

“Then that is where you should be,” Reinhardt stated in a very matter-of-fact fashion, complete with a little nod of his head. He held out his second bottle of beer, already half empty. “To happiness.”

Ana clinked the neck of her bottle against his, noticing in the soft glow that her own was already drained of two-thirds of its contents and she chuckled at that. The light warmth that it brought was certainly better than the chill and the soreness. She’d always been plenty capable of handling her liquor - competitively, even - but she found that a bottle of beer or a glass of wine would often give a nice little fuzz that lasted for a while. Two bottles in ten minutes was only be better still.

“Oh come now,” Ana admonished lightly, her eyes sparkling above a teasing smirk. “You’re only saying that so you can try to take advantage of the situation. Innocent young girl like me, trapped in such a small space with an old man like you? And here you are telling me to follow my nethers in matters of love - people will get ideas, Reinhardt.”

He laughed. “I would say that people already  _ have _ their ideas about me, Ana my friend! I am hardly one to care about such things. For instance,” he swigged from his bottle and looked back with delight in his eyes, “the idea that I am old! Why, anyone who knew Arabic and was nearby the week you arrived, when you called home…” he settled back with a shrug and a wide, triumphant grin. “I suppose I might have mistranslated, given the dialect, but I doubt that is the case.”

Her gaze narrowed, and she struck out a foot to kick him playfully - not her injured one, of course. “No! You could not have.”

“Your father was quite emphatic when he wished you a happy birthday!” Reinhardt chuckled deep in his chest, the sound bubbling out of him. “I did not mean to eavesdrop, of course, but perhaps my hearing is not so bad as the doctors tell me.”

A slow grin grew on her lips and she shook her head smoothly, almost in disbelief. “Everyone else is running around trying to guess, and you’ve known this whole time? I notice it didn’t stop you from joining in the jokes,” she pointed out with eyebrows raised.

“Ha! Why should fact interfere with joy?” He shook his head. “I would no more correct people when they say I am old! What does it matter that we are near enough in years to have attended the same school, hmm? It is only a number, anyway.”

“Please,” Ana scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Spoken as a man who’s never had to spend a week on bed-rest for straining their knee. I absolutely  _ dread _ getting older. My joints are bad enough already.” A sniper’s poses were designed for stability - they were designed for the  _ rifle _ , not for the person holding it.

He laughed raucously at that, finishing off his beer and rolling the empty bottle off to the side. “Take care of them then, my Ana - if I have any say in the matter, you will be ancient indeed before anything manages to do you in!”

“And there you go calling me yours again,” she smirked. “You’re  _ definitely _ trying to take advantage of me now, old man.”

“Hah! The same is true for them all,” he shook his head, “Gabriel, Torbjörn, Liao, Morrison, Adawe, the scientists and the others, the innocents we fight for, every single one. You know I would stand before  _ any  _ of them until my shield fell.”

“I know,” she muttered through a smirk, rolling her eyes again, “but why should fact interfere with joy, hmm?”

“Ah, and which part is it that tells you to tease me so, hmm? Is it your hands? Your earlobes perhaps?” Reinhardt guffawed and Ana feigned offence.

“It is quite rude to mention a woman’s earlobes; she might be sensitive about them.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Anyway, if you think you will get anything out of me so easily as asking, you will be left waiting for a very long time indeed.”

“You are the one who keeps accusing me of taking advantage!” Reinhardt held out a hand in a noncommittal gesture. “Who am I to refute that there is anything to take advantage of? Clearly, there must be, ha!”

“Sure,” Ana retorted with a laugh, “as if I’ve been  _ alone _ in our little games. I see those twinkles behind your eyes and in your grin.”

The small space filled with Reinhardt’s deep chuckle, his grin seeming to stretch further than his cheeks. “Ah, I would be a fool to deny them then! Could I be blamed for them? You are quite the woman, Ana - I can hardly be the first to say it, haha!”

“Hardly,” she scoffed with a smirk, inspecting him through narrow eyes.

“So what is it, then, that holds us back?” He raised an eyebrow, shrugging. “I have my twinkles, you have your own desires; why do we restrain ourselves?”

“Apart from being members of the same unit?” Ana pointed out with a flat look, to which Reinhardt only blurted a laugh, slightly red-faced even in the green glowstick light.

“Aha! As if such a thing could stop a heart from what it wants!”

There, though. That, right there -  _ that  _ was the problem. His  _ heart _ wanted, and hers did not; it was the problem she always encountered, the sandbar she always foundered on, the rock which she always struck. The stumbling block upon which she fell. They all wanted, with their  _ hearts _ , and hers told her nothing of other people - not like that.

Everyone said that you would know, when you knew love. That you could not doubt it nor deny it. If that was the case - and she had little option save for to accept that it was - then Ana knew she had never loved. She felt incomplete for it, all the moreso every time she was told she must have. Every time somebody looked at her and said they saw the love, and then the relationship tore apart - and she was only left frustrated in the aftermath. Not heartbroken, only frustrated.

It was never much of an issue. They were only people - people she liked, yes, but there were many more of those. The way it all congealed and seemed to catch at her, sucking her down like muck in a lake,  _ that _ was the unpleasant part. Not the leaving. She would happily leave so much more swiftly.

Yet,  _ here _ , it could be a real problem. They  _ were _ members of the same unit - and when, inevitably, the same thing happened… when the same course of events that had always run for her, ran its course here, she knew what the result would be. His heart would want, and hers would not; he would hurt, and she would not; she would be frustrated, and he would be heartbroken, and they wouldn’t be able to work together because of his foolish heart.

“I like working with you, Reinhardt,” Ana admitted softly with a shake of her head. “I like the jokes, I like talking with you. I  _ do _ like the twinkles in your eye, but,” she sighed, dropping her gaze to the floor with a slight frown. “Your heart drives you here. Mine does not.” Her lips twisted into a smirk. “I can speak from experience and tell you that such a thing does not end well.”

She wasn’t certain what response she had expected, really - perhaps an argument, perhaps a joke, possibly even some hurt reflex. It wasn’t laughter, though, that she had expected; yet, it was laughter she got. Bright, raucous laughter, and it was so full and so ever-present that she could not help but join in. 

They laughed for a few moments, trapped under the rubble of an inn whose name they didn’t even know, pleasantly warmed and fuzzy from the beer, and that -  _ that -  _ was what she was afraid of losing. Hearts didn’t need to be involved in a friendship, but a relationship? There was only one reason why all of hers had failed, and that reason was  _ her. _

“The very idea,” Reinhardt spoke intermittently over a laugh that continued to run, like a locomotive unstoppable. Sometimes it interrupted his words entirely. “That I would be unable - hahaha! That something so simple could stop my heart?” He burst out laughing again, tossing his head back, shoulders shaking with the force of his amusement.

Ana’s own outright laugh trailed away to a stream of soft chuckles as she looked over with incredulity. “You could not expect me to believe that a romantic such as you would be happy without love, Reinhardt. I may not have known it myself, but I know enough  _ of _ it to see that truth.”

“Pah,” he protested with a dismissive wave of his hand, “I have  _ plenty _ of love! It is within me, friend, and I draw it as well from the others I meet - all I would have from you, is what I already do. All I would have from you is what you would offer me freely.” He paused for a moment, his gaze turning speculative - almost studious in the small space. “You would not have me calling you mine, so I will not,” he shrugged. “How could I bring myself to do anything other than that which you would wish from me?”

She had thought he was deceptively clever since meeting him. He really was - he knew people, Reinhardt did. She was not surprised to hear that he’d been considered as a recruitment tool: everyone liked him, he seemed almost impossible to clash with. He also, somehow, managed to undermine every argument she thought to raise - yes, she could sit here and claim that regardless of what he might say  _ now _ , he might still raise issues later.

She could sit there and claim it. She could sit there and  _ believe _ it, even, but it would have been more of an insult than she was willing to give him. If he said he was capable of a thing, she would not tell him he was not - not when it was only himself at risk anyway, only his heart, really.

He might even have a point. If there was anyone whose heart would be able to take the kick she was sure to deliver, it would be Reinhardt - and she realized as well, with some hesitation, that if he  _ did _ have feelings for her, they wouldn’t be  _ unhurt _ by inaction on her part. Ana never seemed to develop love, but she knew other people did  _ regardless  _ of whether it was ever reciprocated.

Was it really a risk to act? Probably not. It would, however, be fun. “It might be less of an issue than I had been stating,” she rolled a shoulder in an easy shrug, grinning, “but if you’re going to be calling me  _ your Ana _ , we might as well set it straight. I can be yours, yes, I suppose, but I will  _ not _ be yours  _ alone.” _

“I might point out that it has not been acceptable to  _ own _ a person for many years now,” Reinhardt smirked, and Ana rolled her eyes.

“Oh, really? Well, tell that to some of my former so-called lovers. They didn’t get the memo.”

“Show them my way and I’ll tell them with my hammer!” Reinhardt laughed, and Ana let out a chuckle at that too. He often seemed less like a person, to her, and almost more like a character out of some novel, sometimes. Dark eyes studied him in the moderate light; he was plenty attractive, sure, in a few different ways. An almost surprisingly pretty face, impressive musculature. He was a joy to be around, and comfortable despite her best efforts to avoid as much.

As long as he didn’t get too clingy… but if her experience had taught her anything, it was that what  _ she _ did had nothing to do with that. She had been stalked by men she had only waved to, sought out in tears by women she’d gone out for a single drink with. Not always, of course - often people got angry when they parted ways, and far far  _ more _ often, they simply left.

Of course, one never worried about the hundreds of bullets that missed. One only worried over the one bullet which might  _ strike. _

“Well, it’s a rhetorical question anyway,” Ana shrugged, gesturing loosely to the low ceiling overhead. It was only five feet from the floor, maybe five and a half - not even enough for  _ her _ to stand upright and certainly not enough for him to. “Unless you’re telling me you can get out of that armour in a closet like this.”

Reinhardt glanced around with a shrug. “Bah, I’d say it’s hardly necessary!” He glanced back to her with a wide grin and twinkling eyes. “After all - excuse me for being crass, but they did not ever expect us to get through a mission without the ability to relieve ourselves!” Reinhardt chuckled as a panel in the crotch of his armour popped open.

Ana wasn’t sure whether to laugh at that or roll her eyes. She settled on doing both as she shifted from sitting back to kneeling, and shuffled over toward him. “You really  _ are _ full of surprises, aren’t you?”

She took a moment to appreciate the armour, first. It felt fitting, somehow - letting her fingertip trace the battlescars. Thick metal that had been ground out and refilled, sections replaced, and today it had sustained even more damage. The even coat of bright blue paint was scarred with scrapes and trenches and burns - but  _ they _ had survived, and they had succeeded in the mission. Those were the important things.

The plates started to shift and she withdrew her hand swiftly, momentarily worried that she’d done something to them - they slid over each other and retracted, the stomach peeling back entirely. The chest-plate hinged upward, covering Reinhardt’s face as the second arm opened along the front as his first had - he reached up and grabbed a pair of handles on the inside of the chest-plate and pulled himself down and out, sliding and rolling over to his side a little to lay on his back, out of the armour.

He was wearing a pair of olive drab combat pants, and a white sleeveless shirt which was obviously damp with sweat. “As tempting as it would be,” he grunted, peeling the sticky shirt off of himself, “it gets very hot in there without the systems running! Air conditioning is a wonder of modern technology - and it’s hardly that spacious in here. Best to be without the armour.”

“Please,” Ana rolled her eyes over a smirk, “as if you’d be sitting up  _ anyway. _ ”

Reinhardt quirked an eyebrow, but before he had the chance to follow up the implied question with a spoken one, Ana had leapt onto him and shoved his shoulders back against the ground, straddling him at the hips.

She lowered herself down over him, one hand entwining fingers in his almost-too-short hair and she lifted his head off of the stone floor, pulling it to her mouth hungrily. Her other fingers stroked lightly over his chest, less hairy than she’d expected which was almost a shame. Perhaps he’d grow into it, though.

Not that Ana spared it much thought - not while there were so many better and more important things to focus on. Reinhardt’s own strong hands quickly found her thighs and gripped at them, pulling her in tighter as he stretched his head up toward her, tilting and angling and trying to draw her in deeper. She did so quite happily, letting off a brief affirmative chirp as one of his hands slid up and stroked over one cheek of her ass.

“My lips have been asking after that for some time,” she admitted heatedly as she broke the kiss, pushing him back to the ground again. He grunted as his head met the floor, but it sounded more surprised than pained, and as she leaned down to nibble at his earlobe he dragged a hand up her back.

“Mine had hoped,” he chuckled with a sigh, letting his eyelids slide closed and his head fall to the side as he pulled her head in close to his neck. “But never let themselves do so too strongly, for fear of disappointment.” Her lips felt magnificent on his skin, sucking small circles - and the little nips were highly appreciated as well.

“Well, I would hate to disappoint,” Ana murmured against him. “Always nice to celebrate a successful mission, hmm?” She glanced up from his collarbone playfully, wide-eyed with an even wider grin. “A cigar would be nicer, but I suppose you’ll have to do.”

“I’ve  _ never  _ been so delighted to be a second choice,” he sighed heavily, his fingers searching out the bottom of her shirt but there turned out to be no such thing. She chuckled lightly at his efforts and outright  _ bit _ his shoulder, but she did it with a sort of playfulness that still sent a little jolt through him as he tugged at the shoulders of her overcoat.

It came off swiftly enough and left him then wondering what to do next, staring and entirely unfamiliar with the way her armour worked - it was comprised of plates over some sort of bodysuit, that seemed simple enough, and he could  _ see _ the zipper that must lead up the front of the suit but the pull was hidden somewhere. Then, though, there was also some sort of cowl overtop of it all that didn’t seem to make sense, and he wasn’t sure how any of the armour was actually to be  _ removed _ , anyway.

Ana saw his vexed and almost panicked expression, and sat back easily with a smirk. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow as his hands reached first for her chestplate, then withdrew before touching it and stretched toward her leg instead, but didn’t make contact there either. The confusion deepened in his eyes and set into a frown at his lips, and a paralysis of indecision in his limbs as he met her eyes hopelessly.

“I’ll give you a pass  _ this _ time,” she murmured with a glance toward his armour, “because - and only because - you didn’t make me deal with that  _ monstrosity. _ ” Her eyes flicked back to his mirthfully. “But if I need to remove my own bra, that  _ might _ be the final straw.”

Reinhardt opened his mouth to protest, but only a short laugh emerged at first and he shook his head, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I would love to say that this has never happened to me before, but that would only make me sound worse!”

“It does, yes,” she confirmed with a grin as she reached around and deftly undid the buckles that held her chest-plate to the piece of armour on her back. They stayed attached at the cowl around her neck and the whole thing slipped off easily enough over her head so she could set it off to the side on the ground.

“Now,” she whispered softly, taking Reinhardt’s hand and guiding it to the zipper that ran from her neck down the front of her bodysuit, just about to the bellybutton. “Can I trust you to manage this while I handle the legs? Or are you going to need me to hold your hand through all of it?”

“Perhaps it would be best if I simply asked for a show, haha!” Reinhardt tried to sit up but she pushed him back down firmly on one shoulder, the other hand unbuckling plates of armour from her one shielded thigh.

“You wish,” she murmured through a grin. “You’ll need to  _ earn  _ your way up to that.” Truth be told, though, she just didn’t relish the idea of trying to put on a good show despite being unable to stand straight upright.

Slowly, very slowly, he let gravity overtake his hand and drag the zipper smoothly downward, his eyes following its path. He always had liked zippers - or buttons, or any sort of fastener, really. There was a joy in undressing, but then, for him, there was a joy in just about anything.

Not that he was thinking about any of that. No, he was quite single-minded in his delights, and focused entirely on the new views and new opportunities presented as he unzipped the bodysuit lower and lower. He leaned up as the zipper got to the bottom of its path, and this time Ana let him, sighing as he pressed heavy kisses to her collarbone and lower onto her chest. Her back was arched as she stretched back to undo the armour around her calves and feet, and the strain only doubled as he ran his hands along her ribs underneath the bodysuit, peeling it away to the sides.

She actually snickered as his fingers popped the clasp on her bra without a second thought. “Why am I not surprised that you’re well-practiced at that?” She leaned forward across him again, shrugging out of the suit as he helped it off of her shoulders and pulled it off of her arms.

“I would suggest it might not be the first time for either of us,” Reinhardt grinned excitedly, stroking one hand up her bare ribs as the other rose to caress one of her breasts. She lifted one leg from him, tugging the bodysuit off as she supported herself with one hand firmly on his chest, holding him to the ground. He reached down for the one remaining piece of fabric on her as the bodysuit was cast aside entirely, but it would seem that she had different ideas and slid away lower with a devilish grin on her lips.

“Mm, I daresay we could find a few firsts if we searched hard enough,” Ana shrugged, “but perhaps that’s something for another time.” Her fingers tugged at the buttons of his pants while the other hand stroked teasingly at the bulge underneath. She was pleasantly surprised to note that he was very much  _ not _ one of those large men who seemed to have devoted every ounce of growth to  _ muscle _ rather than  _ manhood _ , such as it were.

_ Oh, yes, I think I am going to be very happy with this. _ Ana practically purred a chuckle as she got his pants undone and slipped her hand within, humming and grinning at the way Reinhardt’s head snapped back as her fingers stroked across his skin. The strained groan that squeezed between his tightly-clenched teeth. Truth be told, she was having a lot of fun already.

It seemed only right to make it official. With a sigh, she slipped her free hand down into her panties and began to slowly tease herself as she leaned forward to lick along Reinhardt’s length. She kept her eyes up toward him the whole time - he tried to look back, but his neck tensed as her tongue met his skin and pulled his gaze away again. With an almost agonized groan, though, he managed to force it back and looked down to her with heated eyes.

She kept her eyes on his, gazes locked as she wrapped her lips around him and swirled her tongue around his tip - his back arched and his fingers clutched at the ground, and she got a nice little electric shimmer through herself as she bore down with a little more pressure on her clit simultaneously.

Realistically, she didn’t need a partner for sex, and she knew it - but she never  _ surprised _ herself. Masturbation was delightful, and fun, but never unexpected in the same way that sex could be. There was a lot to be said for another person’s feedback, too - Ana saw the way Reinhardt tore his gaze away from her eyes and forced it lower, toward her hidden hand.

“Like what you see?” She inquired idly, tossing her head to one side and letting her beret fall unceremoniously to the ground. For effect, she redoubled her teasing - then decided to abandon pretense entirely. With a sigh, she leaned down a little further, curling two fingers around and slipping them into her wet heat with a moan as she kept her other hand stroking idly at Reinhardt.

“Ana,” he groaned, “ _ mein Gott  _ you are-” the words cut off in a swift, hissed breath as she shivered roughly and groaned, and it sent a rush through him. She rested her head on his hip, inches away from her hand stroking slowly at him - deliberate, measured movements. She shifted a little to afford him a slightly clearer view between her legs where her other hand worked frantically, the motion carrying all through her arm.

“Aha, I’ll  _ tell _ you what I am,” she hummed, grinning widely and letting her eyes slide shut for a second as she took a deep breath. “Or at least, what I’m  _ about _ to be in a minute or two, and I want your eyes on mine when I do. Look me in the eye, Reinhardt - tell me what you want.”

He strained a pained chuckle as he met her dark eyes, burning with intense fire as she flicked the tip of her tongue out against his shaft just to tease him a little more. “I- too many things! Too many to mention, I-”

“Then  _ pick one _ and  _ say  _ it,” Ana demanded, her voice a little lower and darker than it normally was. She let out a thick groan that trailed into a soft Arabic swear as she shuddered before her eyes snapped swiftly to his again and her grin sharpened. “Otherwise you won’t get to watch me come.”

“A worse fate I could not imagine,” he whispered in a rush, air refusing to stay in his lungs for long. “I want you astride me, Ana.” He could see the fires in her eyes redouble as he complied with her command, and that only excited him further too - knowing that he was giving her what she  _ wanted. _

Of course, her hand grasping at his cock spasmodically did plenty to stoke his metaphorical fires as well, as did the sight of her almost frantically fingering herself - and the sounds of her moans and gasps, too.

“I want you-” he gasped a breath and forced his head down though it wanted to snap back against the floor, forced his eyes to remain open and trained on her as he propped himself up on his elbows. Forced himself to keep speaking, too. “I want you making those faces, those noises, because of me rather than your hand-”

“Yes, more!”

“I want to feel you, hot around me,” he groaned desperately. “I want your thighs clamped around my hips, your nails digging into my chest, I want-”

“Fuck, Reinhardt,” Ana gritted her teeth, laying more heavily against his hip as her muscles started to give out, but she refused to let her gaze pull away, staring back at him hotly through long lashes with dark fire in her eyes. She  _ wanted _ this. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t. He stammered, and stuttered, and cut off for gasps and rough shouts, but he continued nonetheless. As sharp jabs cut through him at every twitch of hers, every stroke; every time one of her breasts brushed against his leg and every time the weight of her head pressed more heavily down on him - despite all of that and how much it made him want to abandon words in favour of amorphous shouts, despite that, he didn’t stop. “I- I want you! I want-  _ everything _ you would give me, my Ana, I need- ah! Please, I- I cannot take much more, I-”

With a low laugh Ana let her grip loose, dropping her hand from Reinhardt’s shaft to his thigh and clutching tightly, digging nails into his skin as she convulsed, pleasure rolling down her spine like a wave and bringing a rough shout boiling up from deep within her. She tossed her head back, slightly sweat-slicked hair slapping against her back. “Yes!  _ Yes! _ AaaAH!”

The orgasm flashed through her like fireworks, her eyes filling with bright colours as her own shouted demi-laugh echoed in her ears. For a second or two she deepened the strokes of her fingers, plunging into sensitive flesh as the sensations sharpened - almost a competition with herself to see just how far she could push it before it became  _ too _ sensitive, before the harsh sensations started to outweigh the ecstatic ones.

Just  _ there _ , that was the line; one she’d mapped out through years and years of delightful self-experimentation, and her nails dug deeper into his skin as she let out one final ragged cry, shuddering with the force of it as her mind was left with nothing but stimulation, no room for another thought - and for a few seconds, hardly even that, as coasting down again dropped all the stimulus away and left her mostly blinded and mostly thoughtless.

She took a moment or two just to breathe, letting her hold on Reinhardt’s thigh off just a little as she panted and withdrew her hand from herself and her panties with a chuckle. “Well,” Ana exhaled heavily, shuffling to kneel upright with a grin and flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Since you asked so nicely…”

“I retract my earlier statement,” Reinhardt groaned as Ana shifted to straddle him, and she quirked an eyebrow dangerously at him. However, he only grinned in response, eyes trailing over her intently and intensely. “ _ Now _ , I have never been so glad to be the second option in line.”

Ana’s eyebrow dropped and her eyes narrowed, her lips curling slowly at one corner as she leaned down to bring her face in close to his and tap a sweet-smelling fingertip against his lips, pulling it back teasingly as he tried to lick at it. She toyed with the idea of saying something, but it was getting harder to think straight; the space was filled with the heat and scent of them, that thick, full tang of arousal and sweat and she couldn’t stop her chest from heaving and drawing deep, steady lungfuls of it. Her eyes flicked between his, and his lips, as she tapped thoughtfully at his mouth for another second or two.

In lieu of words, she let her hips drop. One hand stretched down past his belly and guided him in around the one final vestige of fabric, and she didn’t even try to stop her eyes from rolling back as she slid down onto him. She didn’t make it quite all the way in one go, pausing for a few seconds as her muscles clenched tightly - but he gave plenty for her to enjoy despite the pause.

Reinhardt cried out as if he’d been struck, slapping an open palm against the floor next to him before clenching it into a fist. His wordless cry twisted, tried to form a swear in Arabic first and then seemingly German second, but it failed at each. She did like the idea of that, of having so effectively robbed him of speech - and also liked the fact that it covered up her own similar condition.

Ana let her legs give out as soon as she’d relaxed a bit, dropping heavily. Her legs smacked against Reinhardt’s hips and she raked nails down his chest, delighting in the way he writhed beneath her. She always had liked the playful aspects of sex, the teasing - they were some of her favourites, but right now she was nearly reaching the end of that. 

She hadn’t spared a thought previously for how much she might have wanted this, for how long it had been - she hadn’t had a good fuck since  _ Egypt _ and hadn’t realized how much it was eating away at her. There had been a few run-ins here and there around the base or at the bars, but nothing nearly this fulfilling.

“Reinhardt,” she hissed, clutching a hand at his ribs and dropping her mouth to his, biting desperately at his lip as she groaned and rolled her hips forward against his. She met his eyes from scant inches away, panting heavily. “Grab me, fuck me, say my name - and don’t you  _ dare _ let up until you’re finished. I’m done with teasing.”

He took a moment, one perfect moment as the breath leapt from him, just to admire her. The almost furiously burning passion written across her face, smoldering deep in her dark eyes. He could see it so clearly despite the dim light; heart or no, there was much in Ana that wanted, and it was gorgeous to him. Gorgeous and alluring and  _ glorious. _

Just a moment, just one instant as he managed to catch his breath again before his hands found her hips and pulling her sharply downward. Ana tossed her head back with a bright exclamation, her nails digging into one of his pectoral muscles as he groaned, and when she dropped her head down to bite at his nipple, Reinhardt spat a swift swear.

“Ana!” He managed to gasp, grip tightening around her thighs as she clenched around him and his vision blurred. There had been another word to follow that, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t guess what it had been. Ana wasn’t a heavy woman, and Reinhardt lifted her easily - helped along by her own powerful thighs which urged him on to faster and more forceful thrusts; she sprung up on the force in her legs and he yanked her back down again, blurting a shout every time their hips met with an electric slap. 

“More, more Reinhardt,” she urged, running a hand through her hair and grasping tightly, groaning at the feeling of it tugging at her scalp as she dropped heavily onto him again. She felt his hips start to rise up toward her, countering their rhythm and redoubling it and she gasped as he plunged frantically into her.

“Yes! My Ana, I- ah!” He cut off as his head jerked backward, colliding with the ground but he couldn’t bring himself to care, only dedicated himself to thrusting up even as he pulled her down. Everything became a blur of motion, skin, sweat, heat, tension, and he let it fill him and wash over him.

Ana smacked at his chest, hissed and swore and clutched at herself, nails leaving trails along her dark skin or biting in to leave crescent shaped marks at her ribs or her breasts - wherever she wanted to feel them. There was no way Reinhardt could really see the marks, of course. She was moving far too frantically atop him and his eyes struggled to make sense of anything with the bright swells which overtook them as he lost more and more bodily control.

She shuddered with another orgasm, this one briefer than the last but no less intense - it was sharper, less expected as he caught her skin with fingernails on a particularly forceful thrust and she launched her head backward, briefly shrieking at the ceiling and clawing nails down her own throat before she pulled her eyes down to meet his again, absolutely delighted with the almost painful amount of lust she saw there. For a moment, she focused on that and let her hands drift back to him instead of her, teasing at his chest with a light touch even as their hips almost blurred together.

Reinhardt could hardly think, could barely manage a word even in his mind and it seemed hopeless to try for one spoken, but she’d demanded it and he would do his best to provide. His movements became sharper as time progressed, jerking her down on top of him as he snapped his hips upward from the stone. “ _ Scheisse, _ I- Ana! Y-you feel - incredible!  _ N-” _ he wracked his brain desperately, trying to recall words overtop of his rising ecstasy. “ _ Nakah!” _

A sharp, abrupt laugh leapt out of Ana’s heaving chest and she clamped a hand over Reinhardt’s mouth firmly. “Impressive Arabic, but stop trying to think,” she muttered swiftly, moaning loudly as he quickened his pace and sent sharp shocks and waves coursing through her.

He could smell her sweet scent on her fingers clamped tightly around his mouth, it drifted through his nose and enveloped his brain and he had no choice to do anything other than what she wanted. All of his breath left him in a sharp groan as he abandoned any thought except for her, any thought except for hips and skin and sweat and thrusting. He grunted, groaned, the noises becoming swifter and higher in pitch as his back arched under her, eyes staring up as if to burn the image into his mind.

Ana started to laugh just softly, the sound laying itself easily and smoothly over her moans and swift shouts, catching on gasps of breath and rushing out again but never ceasing - just as he never ceased. She would have been happy for one orgasm, but this was her third and it was entirely at odds with the others; it stretched out seemingly endlessly, dragging on as she let out a low but growing moan, her eyes sliding shut tightly.

She felt him lurch below her, miss a stroke and then continue, and provide the perfect sharp punctuation to her ecstasy as he buried himself almost impossibly deep within her and let go of his own tension. His fingers spasmed at her thighs as he writhed and gasped, groaned and bucked, and she rolled her hips sharply in a desperate bid to extend her own ecstasy for even just another second. It worked, and she got a nice little sparkly something between an aftershock and a fourth orgasm for her efforts, laughing brightly before she let herself fall forward.

Ana caught herself on Reinhardt’s shoulders, glaring down at him with a wide grin and wider eyes. He looked back and thought that it might be the best thing he had ever seen in his life: the way her gaze burned darkly from behind those long lashes, the strands of hair that clung to her forehead slick with sweat, the way her lips pulsed with every breath that rushed through them.

“Perhaps that-” she gasped, panting heavily, “ _ -was  _ better than a cigar.” She chuckled as she swung a leg over him, rolling free even as he groaned.

“I am-” he gasped, shivering a little. “Delighted to even be entered in the running, my Ana!”

She grinned, humming a chuckle. It wasn’t quite as worrisome to hear, now. For a few moments, she lay on the stone floor and regained both her breath and her composure. Yes, there were some worries that remained - but when was she  _ not _ worried?

Somebody cleared their throat, and Ana’s eyes flicked over to Reinhardt - but he was staring back, past her, at the wall of rubble.

“...we can come back later, if you like.” Gabriel Reyes’ amused voice drifted through the chunks of plaster and wood and stone.

“The old man took advantage of me!” Ana called back with a grin, laying back and letting her eyes slide closed again with a chuckle as Reinhardt gasped in offence.

“Yeah, I’m sure. If he’s not wearing handcuffs when we get you two dug out of there, I owe Jack fifty bucks.”

Ana snickered and rolled over, starting to gather up her clothing to get dressed again. Distantly, the sound of clatter heralded the rubble being dug away, bit by bit - mechanical whirring suggested that at least Lindholm was with them, and Ana didn’t mind that in the slightest. There was really only one person she was worried might react poorly to this - maybe two, if she counted Adawe, but she didn’t really.

Unfortunately, the one she  _ was _ worried about, was out there. She heard inklings of his voice at first, muttering back and forth with Reyes - and then, a while later, when she’d donned all of her clothing and armour again and the light grew stronger until the debris was removed entirely, there he was. Jack Morrison.

They’d had a few dalliances around the camp. Nothing quite as explicit as her adventure with Reinhardt here, but plenty of flirting and more than one flurry of lips and frantic gropes, but she’d been just as worried with him as with Reinhardt. Their hearts would all latch on too easily and she was determined to prevent it from causing problems.

She glanced to him warily as she ducked out of the small hole they’d dug, Lindholm helping her out, and she stretched in the fresh air and dusted off her overcoat. The town was largely gone, collapsed into a sinkhole that stretched off to the west - the underground complex was destroyed entirely, and had taken the terrain with it. As she took a moment to enjoy the freedom of no ceiling brushing against her head, and as they three of them crowded around the hole to help Reinhardt out, she took a moment just to look out over the surroundings.

_Successful mission._ _Destroyed town… but then, it was gone long before we showed up._

“So,” she heard a voice over her shoulder, hesitant and nervous and it didn’t really suit him. Jack Morrison shouldn’t be a hesitant man. “You and Reinhardt?”

“Yes,” Ana nodded, rolling her eyes slightly before she turned around and looked at him narrowly. “Me and Reinhardt. Me and you. Nothing exclusive - you knew that.”

Perhaps one day she’d try to settle down. Perhaps one day life would decide it for her - she took her precautions, birth control, but nothing was perfectly effective. If she was late on a dosage every few months or skipped one entirely, maybe that was simply her way of entreating fate to step in and make a stand.

Perhaps, one day, she would settle down. Today, though, was not that day - and neither Reinhardt Wilhelm, nor Jack Morrison, would be that man. She would not be settling down, and she respected them both enough to make that clear to them. “If you think I haven’t seen the way you look at Gabriel, you’re a fool, Jack. We were never meant for each other alone.”

Something flashed through his eyes, some flicker of fear that she didn’t expect - enough that she caught her breath and almost recoiled, but didn’t. She held her ground, and a moment later Jack chuckled. “No clue what you’re talking about, but it won’t be a problem, don’t worry.”

His words certainly seemed insistent. Whether they would prove to be  _ true _ was another question entirely.

“...and I don’t even want to start  _ thinking _ about how you managed that in this armour,” Lindholm growled to Reinhardt as they walked past.

Laughing, Reyes clapped the massive man on the shoulder. “Looks to me like he’s already thinking about it.” Torbjörn only grumbled in response but got a little rosy in the cheeks.

Reinhardt chuckled and shrugged, hefting his hammer over his shoulder. “What can I say, my friend? This suit is a marvel!”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Lindholm shouted gruffly, waving a hand. “I’ll be fixing dents for a week at this rate - and don’t even get me  _ started _ on the strains you’ve put on the shield capacitors! Stop running it until it fails!”

“I never will,” Reinhardt grinned, flashing a look Ana’s way as he followed the short swedish engineer over toward a waiting dropship. Reyes split off from the pair of them and, with a gesture, sent Morrison walking out toward the ship as well.

“Job well done, Ana,” he grinned, offering his hand. “We got a little worried when we detected the explosions - moreso when your vitals started spiking, but I guess that explains itself now, huh?”

She clasped his hand and shook with a smile, smirking. “You gave us some help finding the facility here, Gabriel - Reinhardt owes you a pint for it.”

Reyes laughed and glanced over his shoulder, resting his fists on his hips. “Ahh, of course. If you all think I haven’t heard of your little games of  _ Reyes’ choice _ , you don’t have a lot of faith in my intel abilities!” He chuckled easily as he met her eyes again.

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” she shrugged, studying his gaze for any hints that it might give her. She thought she’d seen something earlier - a flash of something when he had glanced over previously. Jealousy, but it wasn’t there now. “This… isn’t going to be a problem, is it, Gabriel?”

“What, you and Reinhardt?” He shook his head with a chuckle, then tipped it to the side with a shrug. “Well, I guess only time will tell for the pair of  _ you _ , but  _ I _ certainly don’t have an issue with it. Got to admit, the big lug’s a pretty good catch - but then, I’m sort of an arms man, myself.”

Ana chuckled, leaning in. “In that case,” she murmured, “he really is  _ quite _ the catch.”

Reyes laughed briefly, looking back toward the dropship where the others were boarding. He knew that they should join shortly. He knew a lot of stuff that  _ should _ happen… but it didn’t stop what he wanted.

“Me and  _ Reinhardt,” _ Ana reiterated softly, overlaid atop a sigh, and Gabriel’s eyes flashed back to hers. She smiled gently. “You’re not the only one with eyes, Gabriel. I see the way you look at Jack.”

He grunted, dropping his gaze to the ground. “Yeah. Well. Can’t happen, obviously - even if there  _ was _ something there. Chain of command and all.”

“Is  _ that _ going to be a problem? Me and Jack?”

Gabriel hesitated for a moment, looking back to the dropship with shining eyes and biting back the words which wanted to leap from his mouth. They’d talked about it, him and Jack - they  _ couldn’t _ be open about it. He knew that Jack wanted to do things to hide it even more, but Gabriel hadn’t thought… he knew Jack liked women. He just hadn’t thought he go and do something like this in order to keep things under wraps, things which might land them both in a lot of trouble.

“Nah,” he lied easily. He’d been doing it for years - he did it  _ professionally. _ This was nothing. He spun back on heel to flash her a wide grin. “Like I said, nothing there - and I do trust you to handle your own shit, you know. Not saying I won’t poke at you about it.”

Ana snickered a little, shaking her head and glancing back over toward the collapsed field of rubble that had been churning out weaponry a few hours ago. “They expected us,” she murmured, “but I don’t think… that they expected us  _ specifically.” _

“They’ve been reacting faster and faster,” he confirmed with a little nod. “They’re building up contingencies based on what they see as possibilities - when something happens, they’ve got a plan already in place. Or at least, something close. A few adaptations on the fly  and suddenly they’ve got something perfectly tailored, something that looks like they knew what was coming - pretty prescient, pretty impressive.”

Ana shivered a little bit at that. “One word for it, I suppose. Personally I have a little less respect than that for the machines. Those that still have their minds are one thing, but-”

“They’ll all get back to that,” he stated flatly, looking out across the destruction for a moment before he met her eyes resolutely. “We’re going to stop them from taking any more lives, those god-programs. Killing or stealing, human or omnic - when we’re done with them?” He quirked an eyebrow and chuckled. “They’ll never harm another soul.”

Normally, she would have said that he wasn’t the most inspirational amongst them. Not bad, necessarily, but behind Reinhardt and Morrison to be sure. There was a lot to be said for passion, though, and conviction - and its strength to sway hearts and minds.

Ana only nodded, her throat a little clogged with rising memories and thoughts, and it lifted speech out of her grasp. She’d known too many of them, good souls ripped away by claws either literal or metaphorical - she spoke about it rarely. She thought about it almost constantly.

“C’mon,” Reyes clapped her on the shoulder, turning her gently away from the devastation without a glance to her face or a mention of the tear sliding down her cheek. “Let’s get back to base - we’ve got a fun little debrief planned. There’ll be cake.”

Ana laughed hoarsely, wiping her cheek clean before she turned and followed him. “If you’re teasing me with that, I’ll hit you. If you’re telling the truth but it’s one of Lindholm’s, I’ll hit you  _ twice.” _

“In that case, we don’t have any cake,” Gabriel responded swiftly, flashing her a grin as they stepped up into the dropship. Ana laughed lightly as the doors closed behind them.

Yes, it was very different than Egypt had been, and yes, much had happened since. Perhaps, one day, she would settle down - but for now, as she glanced around at the others: Lindholm fussing over Reinhardt’s armour as the Crusader tried in vain to swat him away, Reyes going over to join Morrison at a holographic tactical map where a large ‘X’ was marked as their latest in a swath of little victories - as Ana looked at what fate had offered her as her new team, she knew one thing.

For the time being, at least, she really  _ was _ happy.

**Author's Note:**

> So! There's that! I hope everybody who read it, liked it - and if you didn't, I'd honestly love to hear what you think could've been done better! I can't improve if I don't know where I'm failing, eh?
> 
> I like this overall! It took a lot longer than I meant it to, and ended up _being_ a lot longer than I meant it to, but I get carried away sometimes. Or all the time. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! I really liked getting to go more into detail with some things!
> 
> Yes, this is considered canonical for [BSN](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11077395/chapters/24707637), my current longer chapterized story - it's set way in the past for BSN, so it definitely wouldn't count as a chapter or anything, but stuff gets picked up on from here; I plan to have a lot of little side stories that tie into it as a way of helping flesh out the universe, and I'm going to try to keep them all as compliant with known canon as possible as well as internally consistent. The one-offs should be understandable without having read BSN, but should also contribute more understanding to the overarching plot of the larger story. Of course, I might end up being wrong on any given thing, heh, but we'll see! (On the topic of canon compliance, I have a bit of a rant below but you don't need to read it)
> 
> So yes, this is I guess about what can be expected if you tell me you would like to read something >.> I did the same in another "short" one-off ("Shooting Blanks", a Pharmercy fic), except that one was only about 14k words. Which... isn't that far off, really.
> 
> I've got loads and loads of ideas in my head! I'm trying to keep myself to two chapter-based things at a time, and throwing in one-offs along the side as the time and inclination strike me. This one took longer than expected because I had a really busy week for a chunk of it, but I got it out eventually :D
> 
> If there's anything in particular you'd like to read from me - a ship, a situation, an exploration - please let me know! I'd love to hear it, and I'd love to give it a shot! You can be as general or as specific as you'd like to be (and if you want something shorter I can try, haha).
> 
> Thanks for reading, folks! I hope you enjoyed it all! Little rant below about shooting positions and eyes if you'd like, but please don't feel obligated to read it :)
> 
> Have a great day!
> 
>  
> 
>  **[Warning: Rant incoming about shooting positions and keeping eyes closed! Feel free to skip if you have no interest, heh]**  
>  So! I'm gonna come right out and say that I don't like that Ana closes her eye when she snipes in the Legacy comic - I don't know how she was trained, but I _do_ know how _I_ was trained, and that was to keep both eyes open: every ounce of concentration spent on anything other than lining up your shot was wasted effort. Also, having your off-eye closed spoils tactical awareness: you can't see a person in your peripheral vision through a scope.  
>  I fired with both eyes open, my whole team did; every possible muscle slack, counting on our slings and our positions and our rifles to hold us steady. Now, I wasn't a battlefield sniper (but my range instructor was, for decades, with multiple units), I only ever shot in competitions at ranges - I can happily say that I've never shot a living thing, but I can also say that I am quite skilled at it. I was a consistent 98 toward the end of my competitive career. We won DCRA gold as a team, and I won DCRA silver myself - that's Dominion of Canada Rifle Association, a national competition.  
> Truth be told, I actually instinctively wrote Ana firing with eyes open before I went back and double-checked the comic, and was honestly a little confused to see her with one closed, heh. So, I tried to strike a balance between known canon and my own personal feelings - but I wanted to mention it! Just in case there are any other marksmen out there like me who get a little bothered when they see this sort of thing. Again, I don't know how anyone else was trained, and if your experience differs from mine I'd love to hear it!  
>  **[END RANT]**


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